No bake Muffins!!!

     Yesterday the kids and I made these muffins.  They were super fast, fun and easy to make.  Harper did all the stirring herself.  She loves to bake and is always by my side when I am in the kitchen.  For some reason that sentence reminded me of my favorite song right now.  That is a good one!  The other day, I had to bake a bunch of stuff it ended up taking me four hour and Harper was by myside for the whole ordeal, sweet side kick indeed.  Anyways, back to the muffins.  I am always looking for easy snacks that I can make and give the kids that are healthy and will keep them full till dinner.  Always around 2:30-3:00 my kids are starving and I feel like I am in the kitchen from lunch into dinner.  These are a great solution.  The are pretty healthy too.  There is jam in them but if you use the simply fruit jam I bet they would be pretty much sugar free.  I am so excited for this recipe.  The kids loved making them and have already asked me to make them again!   The coconut in them was Huck's least favorite part, he always says "I don't like that white stuff" but he still eats them.  I hope you guys like them as much as we do! 
*please note this is no way, shape, or form a sponsored ad.  We just like the muffins and thought you may too.

Baking

Baking with kids is the best!  More on this and this recipie tomorrow! 

What are you working on Wednesdays!

     I have been working on Harper's bulle.  So far this pattern has been very straight forward and easy!  It is going much faster then I thought, which is a pleasant surprise.   There is often times when I am knitting something for Harper and I wish that there was a grown up version of it.   In this pattern there is!  It can be found here.  It is the first thing I am going to knit myself when I am done losing all of my baby weight!  (losing the baby weight is a whole different post that I have been meaning to bring up, I will post on it soon!)  I love this designers patterns, they are adorable and seem so cosy. 
     Harper is so excited for me to finish this.  When got back from the yarn store with her yarn she told me "OK Mom, I will watch Fisher for you, so you can start right now on my dress, my birthday is coming up soon.  Go get your needles and get started right away, you don't have to worry about Fisher one bit."  Such a sweet girl.  Whenever she sees me working on it, she comes and inspects it.  lately she has been saying, "oh yeah that is just how I want it! Now don't do anymore, take it off the needles and put it on me right away." She kills me. 
     My girls is quite the crafter herself.   Huck was sick with croup earlier this week and she said wanted to make something for him and surprise him and make him feel better.  On lazy afternoons she will often say "Mom let's sew something."  What I need to do is have a bunch of little projects ready to go and when she asks that she can choose which one she wants to do and we will make it.  Usually by the time I get out all of my supplies and we decided on something,  we no longer have those moments to ourselves.  When Fisher is around there is NO crafting.  That kid is obsessed with sewing pedals, yarn, knitting needles you name it and he is into it.  I can't tell you how many times I have left a room to come back and find him running around with my yarn and my project taken off of it's needles and a bunch of dropped stitches.   There is never a dull moment with that kid!
     What re you working on?  Please join the lovely Ginny and other ladies over at yarn along today.

one thing

     It is amazing to me how one little thing can completely throw off your entire routine.  Fisher broke my phone.  I mean threw it and the front of it shattered.  I now remind myself of the commercial where the guy has bits of blood everywhere and band aids all over his fingertips.  He can't get a new phone until his contract is up.  Lucky for me mine is up next week (good timing son!).  That being said, I have been a bad blogger as a result.  It is rare that I have  a moment to slip away and type on the computer.  I usually blog throughout the day and then once the kiddos go to bed,  I come edit and tweak on the computer.  Often times, by the time I get them to bed my brain is way to tired to write a post that resembles more then three word sentences that talk about sleeping. So as a result my blog has been lacking a little. 
     I went to Ace Hardware today to pick up fly traps and paint color swatches to start dreaming about our new home.  Ace is getting rid of Benjamen Moore! While I have never used the actually paint,  I love their colors and really wanted something tangible in my hands to dream about my future home and what we will make it look like.  I felt frustrated and defeated when I left, this waiting period is hard, so hard and there is no clue for how long we will be waiting for the right one to come along.  Every house we go to look at I want to make work so bad but my gut keeps telling me no.  There is something wrong with each and I know enough now to know to not mess with the gut.  It will come with time.  In the mean time I just want to dream about color! 
   On a unrelated note, a friend of a friend came up and told her that she was worried about her because she had no time to herself.  She told me this and I immediately started laughing.  Time to yourself?  That goes completely out the window when you have kids.  Consider yourself lucky if you get to use the restroom facility by yourself.  There are just some things that you have to be a parent to understand.  Even when I do get away from my kids, I go to girls night.  Time by yourself?  What would you do.  We then started talking about what we would do with a weekend by ourselves.  I know it sounds pathetic but if I had a weekend to myself I would love a good cosy bed and some books and movies, probably a bath too.  If I am being totally honest I would probably get bored after a few hours and miss the kiddos or friendship conversation that I would feel like I was going crazy.   It is odd how life changes, while I may miss reading I know I would miss this life I have more.  It wins every time.  

If I get a moment to myself, I take it.  Even if it is over by the time I finish taking the picture . 

Simple Saturday

Watching the rain, selling our house, celebrating with the kids, knitting Harpers dress and baking is a good day indeed. 

What are you working on Wednesdays!

     Last winter, I made this Pixie hat for Fisher.  I was new to knitting (still am really) and I remember feeling like this hat was taking forever!  Slowly knit on size 3 needles.  I wrote out the entire pattern and went by the number since I didn't trust myself with being able to see exactly what I was doing.  Truthfully, I would do this again.
     All that hard work truly paid off and I would do it again.  This hat instantly become my favorite hat.  I followed Sew Liberated advice and made the collar with two i cords instead of a button and I really liked being able to tie it off.  If you don't know Meg's site, I highly recommend it!  I love her site, she is one of those people that is so talented at what they do! You know those people that with every thing they do, they do so well and so cool?  Well that is her!  Plus her sons name is Finn so naturally she won some bonus points with me.
     The hat was a easy knit even though it did take me a little bit.  The size seems like it will fit for quite some time.  It also fit Huck (who is three) and he often stole it and wore it around.  My kids have abnormally large heads so if still fits them, I think it will fit most for quite a few years (I made the small size)  I thought about making one for Huck too, but just haven't got around to it.   I love the look of these on newborns and if I ever get faster at knitting then I would love this to be my go to baby gift!  This and a pebble of course!
     Please join Ginny and the other lovely ladies over at yarn along today!

random bits

:: house shopping makes me feel like Goldilocks and the three bears.  Too small, to close to the busy street, to much, waiting for just right.  Knowing it will come and this is NOT a decision to rush into despite how much I may want to. 

:: Don't take your kids house shopping with you.  At one point Huck was jumping on the bed.  It was horrible. 

:: Alex and I listened to this book over the weekend.  I love Jim Gaffigan and was very excited about this book.  I love that he is the narrator.   While the book did make us laugh at times, I was excepting something more for some reason.  I still recommend it but it was not as good as I expected.  My brother really didn't like it.  I was very surprised by this until I listened to it.  He doesn't have kids and it is very geared to people with kids.  This was great for us but probably not for everyone.  Hope he gets that three bedroom apartment he is hoping for by making this book (he makes that very clear, that is what he is going for)

:: The first day of school is today.   While we home school, I had lots of friends bring their kids to kindergarten today.  Is this right?  How does the time go so fast?

:: I decided that even though we home school I want to do the first day of school pictures every year still.

:: Fisher slept for 14 hours last night.  It is safe to say that the lake wore him out!

:: Harper has finally decided what she wants me to knit her for her birthday.  It is the Bulle  she want's it to be pink with purple pockets!  Good style my girl, as always!

:: The pebble that I made for Fisher is to big so now it is Huck's.  He is extremely excited about this.  Sometimes mess ups are just meant to be.

:: I have the "must make something bug" so bad.  I am thankful for upcoming birthdays, to satisfy such bugs!  I usually get over whelmed by Christmas.   I try and knit one thing, sew one thing, and embroider one thing for each kid.  The tricky part of this is,  1. I have three kids,  2. Huck's birthday is Christmas eve so really I am knitting him two things, etc.  I may need to take that pebble back sweet boy.  Ok I am not serious. 

::Harper is now jumping off the diving board and swimming to the side of the pool all by herself.  I am so proud of her and I love how proud she is.  She doesn't just jump she does tricks too and it is so cute.  She is a dare devil!

 

a while

   Sorry it has been a while.  Between PT, going to the lake, and just plain busyness that is summer,  I haven't had a chance to sit and blog.   I have also been feeling a tad run down lately.  Either I am fighting a small bug or it is just my body's way of saying "slow down amiga" because apparently my   body is bi lingual.
   Below is a picture of the kids at "frog beach."  The kids know exactly where on the lake this is, and every time they drove by it, on the boat, they would say "oh there is frog beach can we go?"  I was so impressed by this, as I still can't figure my way around the lake and I have been going there since I was Huck's age.  I am old.  I am so glad that my kids will have these memories.  I treasure my time at the lake so much and I love watching them do the same. 
  

No where

And just like that out of no where she draws her very first real drawing of something.  Mickey Mouse, no help and no picture to guide her!  She has drawn things before, the most popular being a stick figure of me with REALLY big boobs (I was nursing at the time).  She just has never drawn something with such detail before.   It amazes me that she was able to think through what he looks like and draw it all on her own.  Huck also drew a picture of Mickey Mouse which I love just as much!  Fisher, well he just needed a hug, this time Grandpa was the lucky winner!

this week

if I am being 100% honest this week has been a hard one.  I try and keep this place positive and focus mainly on the joys of our life but right now I am stressed, tired and feeling very maxed out.  Here are some pictures from Alex's recent fishing trip with the kids.  They always make me smile.

Simple Saturday

That was fun.  I was perfectly happy being with the kids all day.  I could have rode tiger tale with them all day and left the most satisfied of all.  Children's joy, it's contagious! 

Clever

We are very close with our neighbors.  They have kids the same age as us and they all get along great.  A huge bonus is that the parents get along really well too! Our kids spend a lot of time together but sometimes they have to spend some time apart.  When this happens you can often hear the kids yelling at the fence at each other.  Even Fisher runs out to the fence and yells for them.

      Well the kids are starting to try and figure out ways to get over the fence to each other when they aren't hanging out.  I told them that they can't climb the fence because they will likely get splinters and I really don't want to start the fence jumping stage of life yet (I did catch Huck most of the way up, he would have had it if I didn't tell him to stop).  After I told them absolutely no fence climbing they immediately starting coming up with other ways to get over the fence.  The most impressive of all the ideas was wrapping a rope around a chair and lifting each other up.   They tied the knots all by themselves.  Although they weren't strong enough to lift each other over the fence, I love that they came up with other solutions to getting over the fence without touching it.  

What are you working on Wednesdays!

This week I have been working on the pebble vest for Fisher.  This is the third time I have made this pattern and it is safe to say I am a tad obsessed.  In fact,  I have some other yarn that I really want to make into another vest for Fisher.  One can't have enough pebbles can they?  I tend to see certain yarns as a made pebble.  I recently got this yarn from a farm I visited.  I got it for me to make gloves but I can't help but think how cute it would be as a pebble.  We will see what it ends up as.  That is what I love most about a simple skein of yarn, it can be turned into so much, the possibilities are endless.

    I changed this pattern to make it a 18-24 month size.  If it works I will be sure to let you know what I did on my raverly page.  I still need to weave in ends, finish the shoulders and put on the buttons.  I made a mistake on the vest and although most won't notice, I do and it drives me kind of nuts.  I found it way to late and was not going to go back and frog it all out.  So I will just let it be plus Fisher wont notice so that is all that really matters.

     Please join Ginny and the other lovely ladies for yarn along.  

Winding down

Vbs is over this week .  We are recovering from such a busy week last week.  There wasn't one day that we didn't have two appointments somewhere.  Vbs was a huge hit with the  kids.  They still talk about it often and wear the necklaces that they made there.  It was all knight themed which was right up their ally with queens and princesses and on the last day a real horse!  So perfect for them.  

     Our neighbors are getting two new chickens this week ,which they have so kindly told the kids are their chickens and they get to name them and come give them lots of love.  The kids are taking the naming of these animals very seriously.   Harper is naming her chicken Hearts.  It started as Ruby, moved to valentine and now she is settled on hearts.  We will see what actually sticks.  Huck has named his Hot Head.  It started as Galiar (I kept asking if he meant Goliath or Golias and he would say "no Galiar" very clear and slow so I would understand) 

   I hope to keep our time a little slower this week and savor the time a little longer.  For summer, my favorite season, is starting to wind down as kids are starting to go back to school and the days are getting slowly shorter.  

Sunday fun day

Baby humming birds, swimming, bike rides, Popsicles, celebrating the neighbors finishing the coop!  A great day indeed. 

Simple Saturdays

He and I feel the same about mornings. 

Friday!!!!

This week has been a long one.  I know now why the Duggers homeschool.  Look my boys have matching black eyes!  Life is never dull that is for sure!

pause

This is exactly how I feel this summer is going.  Time to try and pause and slow down a bit and let it all sink in.